


my armor falls

by afewreelthoughts



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24272047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afewreelthoughts/pseuds/afewreelthoughts
Summary: Scarred and disillusioned, Brienne returns home to Tarth to welcome a new queen to Westeros.
Relationships: Daenerys Targaryen/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	my armor falls

**Author's Note:**

> for @asoiafrarepairs Weekend in the Stormlands on tumblr; title taken from "State of Grace"
> 
> I own nothing and make no money from this. Everything belongs to George R.R. Martin.

The ships crested the horizon at dawn.

Brienne was fitfully half-asleep when the commotion woke her. She rose and dressed and climbed the castle tower to join the soldiers watching the fleet approach. Her breath made clouds in front of her, reminding her how little this chilly morning seemed like home at all. She was a child of spring, and had never seen winter here. What would it look like? She imagined the rivers and lakes crusted with ice, the great Sapphire Falls frozen in midair. But what would she know about such things? It's always summer in the songs, and she was a fool who thought she could live in one.

Brienne hadn’t so much as answered her father's call home as let herself be drawn, like iron to a lodestone, from where the message had found her in the Riverlands. She followed the water, rivers and creeks leading to the sea, where she found passage on a ship flying Targaryen colors. That could mean multiple things these days, so she waited and listened at the docks until she heard talk of the “true queen” before boarding for home.

Tarth had emerged across the bay like a gem pinned to a length of blue silk. The scar on her cheek pulled tight in the cold sea air. It was not fair that she should be so wretched, so broken, and that this place should remain the same.

“I never thought I’d live to see dragons return,” Brienne’s father said, standing beside her on the ramparts. The ships were now only a mile or two from shore, and Brienne could make out shapes darting in the air above them.

She nodded, a lump in her chest weighing her down. The last thing she needed was a new liege to disappoint, and the last thing she wanted was more magic. Magic struck down the young and raised the dead, and who knew what new havoc these creatures would bring? What did dragons eat, anyway?

Brienne was relieved that her father was content to stand watch without speaking. She didn’t have anything kind to say.

One of the flying shapes broke from the fleet while it was still a mile off, twining through the air in a sinuous path towards Tarth. Brienne’s heart soared without her consent… but the creature was magnificent. Its talons shone gold in the sunlight, and it circled in the sky above Tarth, the light gilding its white scales and making it a second sun. Brienne watched it move in serpentine motions, half-blinded by its light.

When their fleet reached the shallows around the island, the white dragon and its queen landed outside the castle gates, and Brienne followed her father to meet them.

Down from the shoulders of that great beast, the queen was smaller than Brienne had expected, and younger than even herself. It didn’t seem right. Queens should be stately and commanding, shouldn’t they? Brienne shook her head, crushing the uncharitable thought.

Not only was the queen small, she was dressed strangely, wrapped in cloth patterned unlike anything Brienne had ever seen, her wrists decorated with golden bangles and her braids festooned with small silver bells.

Brienne knelt alongside her father, eyes dropping to the queen’s sandaled feet.

If the queen’s stature did not speak of royalty, her voice made up for it. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Tarth,” she said, gentle and commanding at once. “It’s been a long voyage, and I am glad to have such a beautiful place to rest.”

“Thank you for gracing Evenfall Hall with your presence, Your Grace,” Brienne’s father said. “This is my daughter, Brienne. She has proven herself a great warrior in battle and will fight for you.”

The lump in Brienne’s chest grew heavier.

"I swear my life and service to you, Your Grace," Brienne said. For the first time, she spoke the words because they were what she is supposed to say, not because she believed them.

They rose and walked together towards the castle. The queen did not ask for the use of the lord’s chambers, but accepted them when Lord Selwyn offered for the third time.

“It’s the least we can offer for bringing such magical creatures to our shores.”

They all looked out to where the dragons dipped and bobbed over the waves.

“You were blessed with a daughter, my lord,” the queen said. “These are my children.”

Brienne thought back to the stories she’d heard about Daenerys Targaryen, that she’d birthed the dragons like human children, that she’d burned a village to the ground to hatch their eggs.

“And where will they sleep, Your Grace?” Brienne asked.

“Wherever they please,” the queen said.

*~~~~~~*~~~~~~*

Brienne had slept ill ever since arriving at her childhood home. Too many memories spilling from the stones around her, the good ones making her ache as much as the bad. She’d doze fitfully, wake in the night, then let herself sleep all morning. After all, what did she have to wake for? But this morning she rose with a purpose, letting herself be stirred by the light, and climbed once more to the top of the castle, where she watched the dragons lying on the beach. There were two of them, one white and one green. She could not quite make sense of the creatures, large enough to carry their dainty mother, but nimble enough to alight where it pleased them without shaking the earth. Perhaps dragons did not obey earthly rules and were meant to be wondered at, not explained. Brienne had lost her wonder long ago.

The third dragon, black and red and the largest of all, emerged from the forests, something clutched in its massive jaws. It tossed what Brienne now recognized as the carcass of a deer down to its siblings, who tore it to pieces with their teeth. Brienne shuddered and turned away; something almost human in their eyes made their ferocity unbearable.

But she was not alone on the ramparts. The queen, stood behind her, bundled in furs. 

“Good morning, my lady,” the queen said.

Brienne bowed. “I did not see you, Your Grace.”

“Of course. I was only here a moment.” She smiled. “Will you walk with me?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

She wore a crown now, the heads of three dragons gathered together at her brow. She must have noticed Brienne staring at it because she smiled. “I would have liked to have worn it to greet your family, but it has a tendency to fall off in midair.”

Brienne smiled despite herself.

They walked together along the ramparts, and Brienne knew to wait for the queen to speak. She would not have sought Brienne out without a purpose.

“Your father says you’re a great warrior,” she said at last. 

“He’s a kind man.”

“Did he teach you?”

“Teach me to fight, Your Grace?”

“Yes.”

“Our master-at-arms did, Your Grace.”

“That was a great gift your father gave you.”

_Only because I wasn’t good for anything else_. “It was, Your Grace.”

“I’m surprised to meet a Westerosi lady who was permitted to pursue such things.”

“You’re a warrior, too, aren’t you, Your Grace?”

“I had to be,” she said.

_I did, too_ , Brienne wanted to say, but the _why_ of it was the tricky part, and Brienne was not sure if she wanted to share her own _why_ or inquire after the queen’s.

The queen rested her hands on the stones and looked out over the walls, where the rising sun caught on brilliant rivers and lakes.

“Your father's lands are beautiful,” she said.

“Thank you, Your Grace. I suppose they’ll all be mine someday,” Brienne said.

“You suppose?”

“We have a war to fight. I don’t think anything should be taken for granted.”

The queen smiled. “We’re not fighting now.”

“No, we’re not.”

Brienne allowed herself to look at the queen, really look, for the first time, beyond the crown and Targaryen silver hair and violet eyes. Her face was sharp and delicate all at once, a small, pointed nose, full lips, her skin tanned and freckled from years in Essos. As she looked out at the view of Tarth, sadness washed over her features, a sadness that it hurt to witness. 

“Your father mentioned that you left Tarth to follow King Renly Baratheon.”

Brienne blinked. Would the queen hold that against her? That Brienne had followed a descendant of the man she must think of as a usurper? But how could she, if she’d already accepted her father’s hospitality? And few had known a Targaryen heir even existed.

Knowing that would have not changed anything, Brienne knew. She would still have followed Renly, have escaped with Lady Catelyn, have fought for Jaime

“That was years ago now,” Brienne said.

“And who did you fight for after he died?”

“Does it… does it matter, Your Grace?”

“It matters to me, yes.”

Brienne’s mouth went dry. She didn’t want to lie, though a lie would be nothing compared with what she’d done to stay alive…

“Lady Catelyn was visiting his camp when he… died. It was chaos. We escaped together, and I offered my sword to her.”

“And do you still serve the Starks?”

“Lady Catelyn died as well.”

The queen sighed. “There’s been more death than I thought these past few years.”

“We’re tired, Your Grace.” _Tired of fighting. Can Westeros rally again for yet another ruler, no matter who?_

The queen still looked at her as if she knew there was more to be said, and Brienne heard herself speak.

“I was sent to escort Jaime Lannister to King’s Landing. I fought alongside him.”

_And I lost him, too._

Daenerys tilted her head to one side, a gesture Brienne had seen the dragons make. She wondered who had learned it from whom, mother or child?

“So you’ve been on nearly every side in this war. Not the worst thing to imagine you’d take a turn on mine?”

It was a joke.

Brienne knew it was a joke. It was meant as a joke. It was spoken with the cadence of a joke.

But it hurt. Her stomach churned, and nausea flooded her. She fought it, and it fought back. It was stupid to make a fool of herself in front of, what was this, her third liege? Her fourth?

“Excuse me, Your Grace,” she said, not waiting for a response as she tore down the stairs to her rooms and collapsed on her bed, wracked with sobs. When she was finally still, all that was left was shame that she had any tears left. These past two years, had she really left any unshed?

*~~~~~~*~~~~~~*

She made it through dinner with no embarrassment, until after dessert, when her father had retired to bed with his latest mistress, and the hall was more than half empty. Brienne reached for the pitcher of wine to fill her glass yet again, and doing so, she saw the queen standing beside her chair. She flushed. It was rude to keep her waiting, and she didn’t know how long she already had.

As soon as she’d gained Brienne’s attention, the queen sat in the empty seat beside her.

“I should offer you an apology.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I think I do.”

Brienne looked down at her hands, folded neatly on the table. Heavy gold rings adorned them and looked out of place on her slender fingers.

Daenerys Targaryen took a deep breath. “I hope that my campaign might offer some order that’s been lost in the chaos of this war. After all that’s happened, Westeros needs a Targaryen on the throne.”

Brienne met her eyes, and she could see that the girl believed what she said. Sparks of passion glowed there, earnest as a young maid, ferocious as her terrible beasts. And they really were purple, deep and enchanting. Brienne knew she could stare endlessly at a color like that.

“I know that many people have found themselves on all sides of this war at one point or another. This country needs to be united under a single leader.” 

“I believe you, and I thank you, Your Grace.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I insulted your honor.”

Brienne nodded, unsure whether that was the right thing to do.

“And that matters to you,” the queen said, her eyes still piercing, seemingly enchanted themselves.

“It matters to everyone.”

It would have mattered to Jaime. Perhaps even he would not have known that it did, but it would have.

“Many people, perhaps. Not everyone,” Daenerys said.

Brienne’s heart felt too big for her chest. This girl ought to know. She deserved the truth.

“I have no honor, Your Grace.”

Daenerys blinked.

“The… the people I was sworn to. I failed them,” Brienne said, a weight lifted from her shoulders as she spoke the final words.

“Why do you say that?”

_Don’t make me say it._ Brienne tried to steady her breath. She was probably drunk, and shew knew she was tired, she was… Brienne leaned closer to the queen. “I can see that you’re good, that you mean good things for Westeros. And I will fight for you, but I don’t know if…” She breathed deeply. “I will fight for you, but you deserve better than me.”

Daenerys was still looking at her, and Brienne realized her astonishing eyes were drawn to the scar on her cheek. She reached up and brushed her fingertips against the marred flesh, and her touch sent a spark down Brienne’s spine.

“In my experience, no one stays good and unscarred, not in the world we know,” she said. She took Brienne’s calloused hands in her elegant ones. “If you’re a woman who has fought and lost, and still kept fighting…” She smiled. “I could use a friend like that.”

Brienne’s heart was hammering in her chest. She had promised herself that she would never place her hopes anywhere she could fail them. But something in this woman, in her eyes, in her touch, made her want to.

Brienne knelt. "I swear my life and service to you, Your Grace." She kissed the hands that held tight to hers. “And I will fight for you.”


End file.
